Why MAGA?

 

Sometimes I think I understand the MAGA Movement, other times I don't. ChatGPT (here) reports that there are a handful of reasons. The best I can say right now is that it is complicated. My favorite explanation, that aligns with historical analysis of the Nazi Movement, is Right-Wing Reactionism. The failure and humiliation of loosing World War I led Germany to Nazism. The failures for the US are not so clear, but let me just explore Economic failures in this post.

Everything seems to have come to a head during the COVID-19 Pandemic which was a strong shock to the US Economy and was handled very poorly by the first Trump I Administration (2017-2021).

MAGA and Big Tech

To me, the alignment of the MAGA movement and Big Tech continues to be surprising. I have worked in Tech all my life because of the intellectual challenges and the ability to get things done (estimating statistical models, specifically) that couldn't reasonably be done on a desktop calculator. I don't find anything about the MAGA movement intellectually challenging but the Tech Bros seem to see MAGA as a way to get things done. What exactly are they trying to get done and, what if anything is the intellectual attraction?